In the retail industry it is often desirable to provide a benefit to a consumer that is dependent on a particular item being sold. In some cases, the benefit may be a “right” to access media content (e.g., a downloadable copy of a motion picture), where such a right is authorized only after the product has been sold. In other cases, the benefit may simply refer to some feature, advantage, or provision associated with either the actual product for sale, the manufacturer or retailer selling the product, or a particular geographic region where the product is being sold (e.g., special features, rewards, warranties, return policies, promotional or exclusive offers, complementary goods, repair or maintenance policies, off-site merchandise, etc.).
However, with existing solutions, there is often a risk that the benefit may be claimed or accessed by someone other than the original purchaser due to illicit acquisition of an access code contained within the product being sold or within its packaging. In many instances, merchandise within the store may be opened and the access code photographed or otherwise records. This activity often remains undetected as the merchandise may be subsequently reassembled, appearing as if its contents have not been compromised.
Certain conventional techniques utilize a code comprising a human-readable text string, machine-readable code, or a symbology (such as a bar code or Quick Response (QR) code) that remains hidden while the item is sold. For example, some codes may be concealed within areas intended to be scratched off or otherwise peeled away. In other cases, the code may be printed on the inside of the merchandise and is accessible only after the product or product packaging has been opened (e.g., a code printed on the inside of a bottle cap or on an insert of an optical disc case.) To varying degrees, each of these methods relies on the consumer or merchant properly identifying and rejecting any merchandise appearing to have been compromised or potentially accessed by an unauthorized party prior to the item being purchased (e.g., as when a bottle cap appears to have been already removed from the bottle, when the scratch layer of a gift card appears to have been tampered with, when the seal on an optical disc case has been removed or otherwise compromised). However, the access codes of many such products may be compromised and then returned to store shelves. Absent evidence of tampering, an unsuspecting purchaser may wind up purchasing the item, only to later discover that the access code has already been used and is thus no longer valid.
Another drawback of utilizing only a single, unique, “hidden” code is that such systems do not enable the tracking of individual items sold at particular retailers. A stock-keeping unit (SKU) code may be affixed to merchandise, but such a code only describes the category of item being sold, as opposed to any individual unit contained within that category. This prevents manufacturers, distributors, and retailers from attaching certain benefits (e.g., rights) only to items sold at particular stores or within particular geographic regions. In other words, tracking SKU codes does not allow merchandise to be traced back to a particular store or geographic region.
Additionally, without authorization of particular items at the point-of-sale location, there is an increased risk that an unauthorized party will utilize a script or other program to test a large number codes in order to identify a subset of authorized codes. In addition, if a specific mathematical function has been used to generate each code, key generators may be derived and distributed all across the Internet. This enables potentially hundreds of thousands of unauthorized individuals to access the included benefit.
Some conventional techniques utilize only a point-of-sale code, such as a human-readable text string, machine-readable code, barcode, or QR code. However, this technique also presents various complications. In cases where the product may only be activated at the point-of-sale, this requires the store to maintain a continually active network connection. Otherwise, the consumer is forced to wait for some period for a delayed activation. In other cases, the access code must remain visible to the line-of-sight of a bar-code scanner. With the code being visible on the product packaging itself, illicit acquisition of the code may be a concern.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are another means of attempting to securely provide the information, but these tags are relatively expensive compared to optical codes. These devices are also costly to embed within products, and require either that consumers have RFID readers with which to read the “hidden code” after the item has been purchased, or otherwise require significant infrastructure upgrades throughout the supply chain.
What is needed is a tamper-evident system of securing access to benefits, such as rights, that are included with the purchase of a product. Ideally, the system will be less expensive than RFID technology, and yet less susceptible to fraud or exploitation than conventional hidden-code or point-of-sale systems (or a combination thereof). Additionally, the system should also enable manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to attach localized benefits (e.g., rights) to individual items of a single category of products that are being sold at different dates and/or times, at different stores, or within different geographic locations.